We doubted questionable pork products really lured these titans to City Hall - and lo and behold, we were right. They met with Mayor Ed Leeto further discuss moving the basketball team to San Francisco to play in an arena at Piers 30-32. Lee has traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Guber and make his case and sent a letter Friday signed by all 11 members of the Board of Supervisors in attempt to lure the Warriors here from Oakland for the 2017 season.

In other words, the team has hired a group that knows City Hall inside out and has close ties to Lee and other officials. Not to mention this group has gotten big projects like the America's Cup, Treasure Island and Hunters Point approved in the often byzantine worlds of San Francisco development and politics.

It's too early to call the arena a slam dunk, but it's safe to say the mayor and the Warriors are playing for the same team. And wouldn't it be ironic if the 5-foot-5-inch Lee was the mayor to secure a professional basketball team?

The Municipal Transportation Agency on Tuesday approved a new express bus line that will start running between Caltrain and Mid-Market Street in a few weeks as well as the city's first Bus Rapid Transit line, which won't be speeding down Van Ness Avenue for four more years.

The new line, the 83X, is scheduled to start service June 11, hauling folks between the Caltrain station at Fourth and Townsend streets and the upper stretch of Mid-Market, the soon-to-be-home of Twitter, during commute hours, Monday-Friday from 7 to 11 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m.

Muni officials say the new line shouldn't add to the agency's operating costs because it will tie in with service on existing lines. The bus will be timed to depart a few minutes after each arriving Caltrain. In the evening, it will run every 15 minutes.

But the bigger deal is the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit line, a plan to bring a subway-like service to the one of the city's busiest streets. The MTA Board of Directors approved the plan to run down the center of the street, between Mission and Lombard streets, staggering stations on opposite sides of most cross streets to preserve trees installed as part of a recent landscaping effort.

Bus Rapid Transit lines run in dedicated lanes using low-floor buses and stop at small stations with boarding platforms and ticket machines. Proponents say they're a relatively inexpensive way to provide rapid transit service without building a pricey rail line.

"This is the closest thing we can get to an above-ground subway," said MTA Director Malcolm Heinicke.

The rapid bus line is expected to cost $125 million to $130 million with about $80 million expected to come from a federal program, another $20 million from the Prop. K transportation sales tax and the rest from state and regional funds. According to the MTA, they still need to come up with an additional $15 million to $20 million.

Construction isn't scheduled to start until spring of 2015. It's expected to take about a year.

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